Bringing Order to your Human Video- Storylines

Aristotle in his lectures on dramatic form, The Poetics tells us that Plot (the most essential component of theatre (he calls it Poetry) is “the imitation of the action—for by plot I here mean the arrangement of the incidents… [it is] and imitation, not of men, but of action and of life, and life consists of action.”

So the first thing we need to talk about is the arrangement of the action in your story. What happens in most human videos that I have seen is that there is a deficiency in one of these areas: exposition, conflict, climax, or resolution. Each of these is specifically ordered because that is what will garner the greatest effect on your audience.

This is not to say that you cannot structure your Human Videos in another way. By all means, experiment, test out your theories, but I will guarantee you that eventually you will end up back at this structure because it is time-tested and proved. It just works.

Exposition is the part of the story that sets up the action. One problem that a lot of Human videos have is the lack of set up. The audience is flung too quickly into the action of the story with little in the way of explanation. This can lead to the audience giving up on the story before it has even really begun. Use the instrumental time in your song not just for “cool moves” but for clarification. If you have ever taken a journalism class, they will tell you that the first paragraph should convey to you the answers to the “5 W’s”: Who, what, when, where, why. Some would add the one “H”: How. I would not include this in your exposition, however, It is what the rest of the plot is for. By the time you reach your Conflict, you should already know who the players in this game are. One good example from an old human video is “The Champion.” In the action you must clearly lay out who is God and who is the Devil. That particular song does it in the lyrics, but that isn’t necessary for good exposition. You can convey as much from one action, look, or gesture as you can with lines of dialogue. Use that, and do not rely on the words to do all the work for you.

Conflict is a pretty simple word and a simple concept. Disagreement, clash, discord, divergence: all of these are descriptive of what makes up a good plot. When I taught Theatre 101 I would tell my students again and again: “Plot is conflict, conflict is plot.” That is all well and good, but what does it really mean? To put it simply, “conflict” in theatre is two opposing forces vying for the same thing. One is the protagonist (or the hero) and the other is the antagonist (or the “anti-hero”). One then, is the one you root for, the other is the one you do not. This must be made clear. If your audience does not know who is who, how can they know what message you are trying to send? The conflict should put a question into the mind of the audience, “Who is going to win?” “What is going to happen?” At each plot point, turning point, or what ever you wish to call it, they should ask the central question. (examples of central questions: “Will the boy get the girl?” “Will the boy become a man?” “Will the girl get her brother back?” Every conflict should be so simple it can be distilled into one question in this way.

Climax is the point in your plot line at which the conflict comes to its highest point. This is the point when it looks like the protagonist will most certainly loose, and loose horribly. Your audience must fear that all hope is most certainly lost, and in this way, victory will be all the more satisfying.

Resolution or denouement is where the central question is finally answered. This is when your audience finds what is called “catharsis.” It is the satisfying feeling you get when you have seen a story through to its completion.

There you have it a storyline in a few simple components. When your plot has each one of these very important elements, your human video will shine.


Human Video
Human Video

Bringing Order to your Human Video

It is my hope that this blog will be a resource for those who wish to improve not only their rankings in Fine Arts, but also the over-all quality of their Human videos. To that end, I would like to write a series of posts that deal with just that. In searching for a way to communicate part of the creative process (which, in itself is not a static thing, but is different for every group and/or individual) I looked to some of my textbooks from school (they do come in handy sometimes).

My Script writing class seemed to be the place to start, especially since most problems I have seen deal with poorly organized scripts. “Making a Good Script Great” by Linda Seger gave me a basic structure: “A script could be divided into five major components: the storylines, the characters, the underlying idea, the images, and the dialogue.” This gives us a jumping off point so, are you ready?

Are you ready to radically transform your conception of the creative process in writing and choreographing Human Videos?

Then, let’s get to it!


Human Video
Human Video

Human Video is Dance.

It is a popular trend in the Assemblies of God to refer to Human Video as "choreographed movement" and by labeling it that, it somehow becomes not dance.

This phrase is just one of the key exhibits the case arguing for ignorance of those people who propagate such foolishness.

The case against "dance" by those distinguished forbearers of our faith has always been one of confusion for me. Where did this idea come from that dance itself was somehow bad? What is it intrinsically about moving ones body that is so offensive? Nothing. Seductive dance is not profitable for our aims as Christians and therefore ought to be abstained from, but so should seductive talk, and we do not abstain from talking at all.

This antiquated idea ought to be done away with, but that is a subject for another post.

Today I will show you how Human Video falls into the theatrical category of Dance. In order to do that, I will need to define both Human Video and Dance.

Dance (from Old French dance, further history unknown) generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression (see also body language) or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting.

Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as Folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. In sports, gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming there are dance disciplines while Martial arts 'Kata' are often compared to dances.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that Dance is:

1. A rhythmical skipping and stepping, with regular turnings and movements of the limbs and body, usually to the accompaniment of music; either as an expression of joy, exultation, and the like, or as an amusement or entertainment; the action or an act or round of dancing.

2. a. A definite succession or arrangement of steps and rhythmical movements constituting one particular form or method of dancing.

The only encyclopedia (to my knowledge) that contains a definition of Human Video is wikipedia, and even thought it is chiefly written by me I will use it as I believe it is a succinct but thorough definition:

A human video is a form of theatre combining music, American Sign Language, Modern Dance and drama. A human video consists of a song (usually by a popular singer or group) played over loudspeakers while actors use rhythmic physical movement (gestures and other movements of the limbs and body) to communicate joy, exultation, sadness, anger, and often the passion of Jesus of Nazareth to a given audience. Their movements should demonstrate both a story and the theme of the song being played. The story can be either implicit in the words of the song or a story written independently of the original artist's meaning.

Physical movement, rhythmical movements;Turnings of limbs, movement of body, form of expression, presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting.


I don't believe that a long explaination of my views would be nessisary or benificial. It is clear form these definistions that Human Video * I S * Dance.


Human Video
Human Video

Physical Energy =/= Expending Energy

One of the most important things I have learned about acting from performing, from classes, from talking with other theatre professionals, from judging Human Video competitions, is that expending physical energy is not the same as having physical energy.

In fact, most of the time, expending energy in thrashing or bouncing around, and fighting is actually antithetical to having physical energy. This idea might seem a little confusing at first, but if we look to physical science, we can easily see how it applies to acting (especially in a Human Video).

Here is a child's science experiment I found through Google that describes the difference between "kinetic" and "potential" energy:

This Week's Experiment - #216 Pendulum Perils

This week's experiment requires a lot of faith in the laws of science. When it is done at science centers, it usually involves a bowling ball rushing towards your face, but we will use a less dramatic version. You will need:

string
an apple that still has the stem on it
a high place to tie the string. I used a shower curtain rod.

Tie the string to the stem of the apple. You can use something besides an apple, as long as it is round and easy to tie the string to. If you use something that is not round, it may smack you in the nose, so I suggest looking for an apple.

Tie the other end of the string to the rod that holds your shower curtain. You want to measure the string so that if you sit in the bathtub, facing towards the curtain rod (sideways in the tub), you can pull the apple over so that it touches your forehead.

That is exactly what you are going to do. Lean your head back against the wall, so that it does not move forward or backwards. Pull the apple towards you until it touches your forehead. Now comes the part where you have to trust me. Release the apple, letting it swing away from you. That wasn't so bad, now was it. But wait! Now it is swinging back towards you! Will it smack you in the face?

No, as long as you do not move your head, the apple will not hit you. Why not? As the apple moves away from you, it is picking up speed. It is converting potential energy, from its height, into kinetic energy, the energy of motion. Once it passes the lowest point, the opposite begins to happen. It is now moving against gravity, and some of its kinetic energy is converted into potential energy. Once all of the kinetic energy has been converted, it stops and starts to move downwards again.

In a perfect system, this would keep happening over and over, with no energy lost. In reality, there is resistance from the air, friction with the string, all sorts of things to drain away some of the energy. This means that each swing will not go quite as high as the one before it. Because we know that our apple on a string system is not perfectly frictionless, we know that the apple will not make it back up high enough to hit your face. Just be sure not to move, and use a small apple, just in case.

When the apple is moving through real time and space, it is expending it's energy; it is using up any potential energy it has. The problem with that is that as the energy is used up, the store is burned through. When there is only so much of the energy, there is less and less of it after each swing. When this energy is "drained away" there is nothing left, and "each swing will not go quite as high as the one before it."

It is the same way in acting, especially in a Human Video.

In a perfect world, without friction, you could expend as much energy as possible and it would all still have an effect on your audience. The problem is, we don't live in a perfect frictionless environment. When you keep "swinging" you loose what potential energy you have built up.

The key then, rather than expending a lot of energy is wasted gestures and fighting, in thrashing around wildly, in bouncing needlessly, is to conserve your energy.

What I mean by this is not "don't expend any energy" but rather I mean conserve it. Use it in the most important places. Take a good look at your storyline. What is the "Central Question" of your story? What is the most important idea? Use your physical energy to emphasize that point.

Neither does this "conservation" mean that you should have "dead spots" in your physical action. During the interim, between your important points, think of ways to build up potential energy. This can be done in a variety of ways:

Re-emphasize the Central Question/Idea
Make the conflict more urgent
*Almost* expend the energy and then pull back from doing it

These are just a few examples.

Try it out and see how much more effective the "physical energy" is in your Human Video.

Human Video
Human Video